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POPSOn the Threshold of Eternity… It was, always have been in human nature... Depression. Terrible destructive feelings of hopelessness, darkness even in bright day. In the final count it is looseness, inability to manage your own life, copying with advancing troubles. Look at his haircut, beard, high hills... And he had his paintings. Instead of Internet.
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POPSAmericans whinge about proposed Internet bandwidth cap For the first time ever, it seems American ISPs are thinking of implementing bandwidth caps to curtail Internet usage, and many are up in arms about it. But Comcast's mooted 250 Gig cap seems infinitely generous compared with Telkom's 3 Gig monthly maximum, and anything else one has to pay extra for.
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POPS4,000 U.S. Combat Deaths, and Just a Handful of Images The truth hurts, right? See the rest of the story at link. People often forget why we anti-war refuseniks are so adamant--this photo is why. Dead Americans. For What? Oil and bullshit. Lies told by criminal President. It's absolutely disgusting, ain't it?
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POPSPhotographs of War... or Not? What a complicated issue.... I can see the military wanting to preserve security and honor the memory of their dead; I can see families not wanting to be traumatized by photos of their loved ones; but I think about all we are still learning from photographs of WWI and WWII... and if there are no photos of the Iraq war, where will that leave historians of the future? Most of the WWI and WWII photographs were taken by military photographers assigned to document the actions. I wonder if there are still military photographers documenting todays "wars"?
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POPSIndiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull Long-awaited return: Indiana Jones director Steven Speilberg with, from the left, Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone, Harrison Ford and, sitting, Karen Allen The first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, was released in 1981, followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984 and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. Together they have grossed £600million. This time he is battling the Russians, with Cate Blanchett playing a Soviet agent. Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood, Indy's love interest from Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are also roles for Britons Ray Winstone, John Hurt and Jim Broadbent.
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POPSBest on the Net: Italy expose Income of All! Tax evasion is rife in Italy and both Silvio Berlusconi, the incoming PM, and the man he succeeds, Romano Prodi, pledged to tackle tax cheats. Prodi's finance ministry described the move as a bid to shine a light on people's murky tax returns. The tax minister, Vincenzo Visco, was quoted in Italy's Corriere della Sera saying: "It's all about transparency and democracy. I don't see the problem." But the timing of the release of the information has been viewed with scepticism. It was one of the last acts of Prodi's centre-left government before it leaves office next week, sparking accusations the move was motivated by spite. ... Guardian
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POPSAn Angry China Is Lashing Out At Foreign Critics Internet demands for boycotts have unnerved some foreign companies. Following the Olympic flame's troubled passage through Paris on April 7, activists called on Chinese citizens to boycott Carrefour, a French supermarket chain that is the largest foreign retailer in China, starting on May 1. Anonymous mobile phone text messages accuse the retailer of backing the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing blames for instigating unrest in Tibet, a charge the retailer denies. Many Chinese are incensed that a pro-Tibet protester in Paris lunged to snatch the torch from Chinese athlete Jin Jing, who was in a wheelchair. State television in China has portrayed Jin as a hero for hanging onto the torch.
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POPSFBI Abuses Patriot Act FBI agents are human beings who, like all human beings, carry grudges, hold strong prejudices, have unreasonable fears, can become overly involved, and often become confused between security and privacy. Should they have uncontrolled access to our private records?
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POPSDid Hillary Ad Darken Obama's Skin Color? "Some bloggers immediately compared the case to the infamous 1994 Time magazine cover of O.J. Simpson following his arrest on murder charges. In that case, Time photo editors deliberately darkened a mug shot of Simpson, giving him a much more menacing appearance."
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POPSConservatives say Obama lacks patriotism I guess the bastards are gonna try pull the "Patriotism" card again! That "Lapel Pin" has become a symbol of the opposite of "Patriotism" as far as I'm concerned! What a bunch of hypocrites. I hope this country has grown up a little in the past four years.
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POPSMRSA USA300 hits whom it wants. “It’s really meant to be used to mean all inclusive, including the men-who-have-sex-with-men population,” he said. “It’s not just gay people that get it,” he said. “You can get it anywhere.” Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which helped finance the study, affirmed on Wednesday that the disease was not sexually transmitted or limited to a certain type of person. It is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, the agency said in a statement, and is widespread in hospitals and among hospital workers. “These infections occur in men, women, adults, children and persons of all races and sexual orientations,” the statement read, adding that while the particular strain identified in the report had been found in gay men, it had also been found in people who were not gay. (NYT)
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POPSPrint vs. Online Sources - editorial piece This is an interesting editorial on online sources (e.g. Wikipedia) versus print sources. As a librarian, I am slowly changing my mind about the validity of the information in Wikipedia. I do not agree with Magnus Linklater's idea that Wikipedia is the first and possibly only place to find information. I still feel that print sources are valid and that they should be a part of research. I do not know any thing about the UK's education system so I cannot comment on that. But I do know that education curriculum needs to change. Research, writing, peer-reviewing -- all of these things are changing with the "read/write" web and as an educator/instructor we need to prepare students for these changes.
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POPS“Cy-Borges” New Directions, the publisher of “Labyrinths,” reissued the collection in May, for the first time in more than 40 years. In a sign of the changing times it includes an introduction from William Gibson, the cyberpunk author. (The original, by contrast, came with a preface from André Maurois of the Académie Française.)
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POPSThe Company He Keeps or Why Mike Huckabee Creeps Me Out More from duckplops: "Politicians seem to feel the need to ingratiate themselves with proponents of this aberrant if not insane behavior and Mike Huckabee appears to be tied at the hip with Gothard, going back all through his governorship of Arkansas. The two disciplines, pun intended, politics and religion have found common cause in our slide down fascism's slippery slope. If Huckabee gets anywhere near the white house one wonders if we'd have little prayer room treatments of our own sometime in the future." It's not just Huckabee, either...the other Republican presidential candidates creep me out, too (so do some of the Dems).
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POPSGoogle's Street Views now test Bostonians' privacy Google today added Boston to its growing list of U.S. cities featuring on-the-ground, street level views of people and places. Bostonians will note that Boston's roughest neighborhoods, in Mattapan and Dorchester, are not included in Street Views. Those are the areas in which most of the city's homocides took place in 2007. -- Mark Baard http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Third_Party_Photo/2007/12/11/1197374304_1928.jpg
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POPSDe-Classified If You Hate Putin, You Will Die Early Did you know that the boy whom Putin kissed learned to fly? Or that Putin can browse the Internet with an abacus? Or that on his birthday critics drop dead from thinking bad thoughts about Putin? Each year spent in the Kremlin makes the Motherland's President stronger, endowing him with more superpowers unbeknownst to man. For years, Party-approved rumors about Putin's supernatural abilities have been spreading over the internet in the Mother tongue. To translate them into the language of soulless capitalist oppressors is an idea whose time has come! If not now, when?
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POPSHouse hearings have harsh words for spying in China but none for doing same in USA There were harsh words for the US tech firms aimed at their China internet spying activity yet -- unbelievably not one word about the companies doing the same in the USA to our own people in Bush's domestic spy program. YES the cat is out of the bag - splitters were installed by the internet companies in the USA and the Bush spy program is looking at EVERYTHING -- no warrent, in violation of our constitutional right. This is a high crime against the United States of America. The guarantees in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights was passed to amend the Constitution and define what can and can not be done. These superceed any perceived powers granted to a president by the Constitution and in no way allow in peace or war to do away with these rights.
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POPSIf Obama Really Respects Gays, He's Gotta Can This Guy I realize Senator Obama is getting desperate in trying to staunch the roller coaster of Hillary Clinton in the primary campaign, but he has got to be more careful about who he welcomes into his fold as spokespeople. McClurkin is a self-loathing homosexual who uses his blackness and his religion as a way of salving his own self-inflicted guilt for being homosexual, and has convinced himself that all us sickos can be cured of this horrible disease. I am hoping Mr. Obama will immediately sever his relationship with this dangerous a-hole. I know Hillary appears to be taking the bulk of the Black vote, but he cannot appear to be desperate, or he will really lose all credibility, which is something thus far, he has plenty of.
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POPSEast African Views on Sci Fi, 9/07 I'm intrigued with the developing world's view of western sci fi. Our technology-centric culture, and our western mythologies, must sound foreign in more ways than one. (Note that this article is actually from Kenya, one of the more developed African nations, with strong universities and reasonable internet access.)
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POPSAustralian Federal YouTube Elections Australians don't take politics very seriously (Unless they're politicians,) Sarcasm has been developed as a self defense mechanism, when assaulted by political stupidity, and as a means of giving politicians credit where it isn't due. They don't mind as long as they're in the papers. (The net might have more sense) -tabsey, I couldn't find a picture with the 3 Stooges, but the picture I found is pretty good, with John looking down his nose, and Costello on the page looking as though he had just laid a golden egg. I didn't realize how funny the election was getting until I looked. Until I remembered they are supposed to be running a country between them. All they want is the glory. They share the money between the two parties.
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POPSBloggers Preempting Theatre Critics Professional movie critics are usually the first-to-market with their reviews thanks to pre-release press screenings. But theatre critics traditionally hold off on reviewing new plays until their offiicial premieres, which often follow days or even weeks of "preview" performances, providing a window of opportunity for theatre-loving bloggers. - Louis Hau
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